Chapter 9: The Girls' Missions
That morning, the girls departed The Lower Gordu Dungeon and returned to the Twin Cities. DM turned his attention to Daphne’s party which had arrived the evening before at the capital, Ereacht. It looked like they were going to spend the day in the capital before departing to the north the next morning, towards Daphne’s home. DM glanced around at Ereacht. It was quite an impressive city when compared to the Twin Cities. He didn’t have a bird’s eye view but it was clearly much larger.
Those adventurers that entered the Upper Gordu Dungeon just after DM departed had wandered around on the upper floors all night, fighting monsters and looking for treasure. It kind of made sense to explore at night considering the brightness would be the same in the dungeon either way. Perhaps this was a countermeasure to bumping into other parties? DM wasn’t sure.
Bandit met up with the girls and was immediately jealous when she found out that they each had been granted a monster to snuggle with overnight. They all quizzed her on what type of monster she’d request if given the choice, but she wasn’t sure. Ultimately, she decided she’d worry about it when the time came.
At the Guild, Olivia received the report that the girls had returned safely. She briefly quizzed them on what had happened after she left, but they just said they hung out on the lowest floor for a few hours until the dungeon master told them he was done and that they could depart at first light. Olivia accepted the answer but told them something had come up and they should hold off on trying to do more missions. They decided to find a place to get a big breakfast while killing some time.
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DM monitored Vera closely as she searched the Church for the priest that was handling her and her secret mission. They connected and walked to a room where they could speak privately, free from eavesdroppers other than DM.
“Vera, have you had any success?”
“Yes! Just by chance, I joined up with a party that was visiting the dungeon in the Lower Gordu.”
“Wonderful. You bask in God’s grace. What did you learn?”
“We made it all the way to the bottom of the dungeon and even had one on one discussions with the Dungeon Master.”
“One on one? Vera, is it possible your secret but sacred mission was discovered?”
“I—I don’t know. I don’t think so.”
“So what happened?” asked the priest.
“First we discussed the design of the dungeon and how the dungeon master might improve it to make it a better place for adventurers to learn.”
“Hm, surprising.” The priest took a moment to think. “Ah, that was very clever of you, although I’m surprised a dungeon master worried about such things.”
“Of course, I am just a beginner, but the dungeon master understood that and asked me for my opinion anyway.”
“Commendable. Even a monster can demonstrate our principles, it would seem.”
“Father, it gets even better than that!”
“Better?”
“After we discussed the dungeon, the master asked me if I wanted to talk about anything else. I asked him about the sun and the planet.”
“Oh, what did he say?”
“He insisted that this world revolves around the sun!”
“I’m so pleasantly surprised. I would have thought a monster would go with the simple and ignorant response. Well, I did hear that dungeon recently used an advanced puzzle in mathematics, so perhaps it’s not shocking…”
“There’s more!”
“Hm?”
“The dungeon master wanted to discuss why this world revolves the sun, and he provided a very smart answer.”
“Vera, explain what you mean.”
Vera spent the next several minutes walking the priest through DM’s basic explanation of gravity, how the same force attracting people to the planet attracts the planet to the sun, and how that force causes the planet to orbit in a circle around the sun.
“I—I need to discuss this with the others.” The priest made for the door, but stopped to look at the priestess over his shoulder. “Good work, Vera.”
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The five girls returned to the Guild, hoping to get more information about what the fuss was about. They found Olivia again.
“Olivia, what’s going on?” Kat asked.
“Girls, are you sure you didn’t see anything odd happen in the dungeon while you were there?”
The five beast girls looked back and forth at one another and all shook their heads.
“I see… I’m not at liberty to say what’s going on. The Guild is preparing a trip to the dungeon.”
“Like yesterday?” Shiba inquired.
“No,” said Olivia. “This will just be Guild staff.”
“Why?” Vulp asked, but Olivia just shook her head and returned to what she was doing. The girls stepped away to discuss what to do as they noticed Rufus walking over.
“Girls! Quite strange behavior from the Guild staff, huh?”
“Rufus, can I talk to you?”
“Of course, Vulp. Come over here.”
The other girls knew Vulp was carrying out DM’s request to try and work with Rufus to get adopted into the family.
“Why don’t I go to the Church?” Kat suggested to the remainder of her party.
The other three girls nodded, not needing to inquire.
As the remaining girls talked about their options, Thaw walked over. “Nina, are you on a mission?”
Nina shook her head.
“Come with me.” Thaw led Nina out of the Guild.
Shiba and Lupy looked at each other. “What do we do now?”
“It’s not fair,” Lupy complained.
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As usual, DM was too busy monitoring his friends to pay much attention to the dungeon. Rufus had reluctantly accepted Vulp’s request. He was talking her through everything he could think of that she would need to know in order for this plan to succeed. Most of all, he was clear that he really had no intention to marry, but Vulp of course had no problem with that. Rufus also provided some tips about ways to convince your family to let you continue adventuring with your friends.
DM flipped his attention over to Kat. She entered the Church and asked around for Vera. Eventually, the two connected.
“Kat?”
“Hi Vera. I want to learn more about your healing magic.”
“Oh, I don’t mind—“
“Vera!” The priest jogged over as fast as his feet could carry him. “Who is this?” He gestured towards Kat.
“This is Katherine. She is the white mage from the party I paired up with.”
“Oh?” The priest looked Kat up and down. “So young. You’re really a white mage already?”
“Yes!” Kat confirmed quite proudly.
“This is perfect, actually. How would you like to learn some of our teachings and holy magic?”
“I would!”
“Great. Vera can fill in for your party if you need while you’re busy here.” The priest waved over another priestess, one who was clearly a bit older than Vera. “Please introduce Katherine here to our teachings and, most of all, our magic.”
The priestess nodded and guided Kat away.
The priest whispered as Kat was out of earshot. “We’re all extremely interested in what else that dungeon master has to say. Am I correct in assuming that he wouldn’t appreciate a large-scale visit from the Church?”
“Yes. He told me he would be happy to chat with me again, but he wasn’t interested in hosting a whole bunch of people from the Church or anywhere else.”
“I see… You’ll have to do, then. Figure out a way to get back to that dungeon and talk more with the dungeon master. Learn absolutely everything you can from him about our sun as well as anything else that relates to our teachings.”
Vera nodded, not at all surprised by this request.
“Don’t question him too deeply about who he really is or why he knows such wonderful things. If we were meant to know such information, we would be granted that knowledge whether we inquired or not.”
“Okay.” In truth, Vera was intrigued by the dungeon master and wanted to know more about him, but she wouldn’t question the priest or the Church’s orders.
“Be prepared to teach the clergy everything you learn. After that, I expect we’ll send you to the capital to explain it as well.”
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Thaw sat across from her protégé, Nina. “It’s mission time.”
Nina nodded, but after a moment, she asked, “Am I ready?”
“Like I was saying earlier, you’re more ready than you realize. Don’t worry, I’ll do the killing this time.”
Nina gulped.
“The timing is pretty bad, honestly, but it’s convenient for me to have a second pair of hands available. As you know, I’m still quite busy looking into those recent murders at the Lord’s manor, but one individual decided to take advantage of all the chaos and drag down a Guild member with them.”
“Is that why you want two of us?”
“Yes. I’ll be taking care of that individual. I actually just need you to scare the Guild member a bit. He’s young, and he was manipulated into cooperating by an older man who needed information from the Guild.”
“What did they do?”
Thaw grunted. “I don’t want you to get in the habit of asking questions like that. In fact, it’s better if you don’t know, normally. In this case, I’ll answer, but don’t get used to it.”
Nina nodded.
“This man had a newbie Guild member gather information about a particular a client from the Guild so that he could rob that client. Foolishly, he also used that member as a lookout, although the member didn’t participate directly in the theft and probably didn’t fully understand what was even going on. That’s why we’re just going to punish the younger one a bit for not reporting this all to the Guild on his own.”
“What should I do?”
Thaw tossed a cloak over to Nina. “This is enchanted. So long as you’re wearing it, people won’t be able to identify you. All you need to do is scare him without injuring or killing him. You’re higher level so don’t worry about that. He’ll put two and two together when his contact is eliminated by me.”
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Shiba and Lupy were still a bit tired from the previous evening, so they decided to just return to their inn and rest. The two complained to one another about how the other three members of their party all had special missions or side-gigs, leaving the two of them to fend for themselves.
Lupy suggested Shiba ask around about black mages who might be able to teach her interesting things. Shiba didn’t object but wasn’t sure how to go about that. The Guild was too pre‑occupied to chat with for the time being, anyway.
Shiba suggested that Lupy find some place in the city where she could practice combat techniques, other than the Guild. Lupy was amenable to the idea but similarly wasn’t sure how to start looking into that. The two decided to take a nap and then, if their friends weren’t back, wander around the city together looking for answers after lunch.
DM hadn’t caught those particular conversations due to being a bit busy monitoring the others, but he did flip over to observe Shiba and Lupy after they settled into their beds for some rest. The surprising thing was that Shiba held a cat-type monster in her arms as she slept.